BY MY RECKONING (JUST CHECKED THE TIMINGS OF LAST 12 POSTS COUNTING BACK FROM 20,012);

DALAI POSTED THE 20,000TH POST WHEN HE OPENED THIS THREAD (Gear Lust: Climbing Gear Ideas that Flopped) AT 12.15.50 HRS 06/09/04 (TODAY).

CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP, THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE ROLLS ON ....

WELL DONE DALAI
WELL DONE CHOCKSTONE
WELL DONE MIKE
WELL DONE TO THE OTHER 19,999 ...

On 6/09/2004 dalai wrote:>Over the years, companies have released products thinking they are the>next big advancement in climbing. But they don't gain acceptance and quickly>fade into obscurity...>>The Whillans Harness. Advancement from the old swami tie in, but with>the most painful design! Fortunately designs improved from this...>>Or a more recent product - Boreal's grey shoe rubber, specifically designed>to avoid marking indoor climbing walls. The rubber wasn't as sticky and>most climbers didn't care if they mark the walls.>>Any others??>>

G'day Konhobar,
Welcome to Chockstone.
I have checked out your site Baurock and it looks excellent.
For people like me who cannot read Russian your abundant use of pictures is really helpful, and it is good to see others enjoying climbing.

What length ropes do you use for your sport climbs?
I ask this because I noticed in the photo sequence of lowering off a bracket by threading a sling, and then tieing the tail of the rope to it to enable retrieval, that this would effectively halve the length of abseil ? ... or do you pull up a second rope??

On 9/09/2004 WM wrote:>yes it shortens how far you can rap but it's 2/3rds not half
To tell the truth I did not even think it through, as I have never had the need to do this manouver.
Shows how much I sport-climb eh !!

On 9/09/2004 A5iswhereitsat wrote:>Whilst abseiling in the pocket of the loop created by tying back the tail>to the sling, would you not have;->1. Excessive friction of ropedrag on sling (potentially fatal consequences>methinks), at the top; in order to feed through the extra rope to achieve>the 2/3 length?

You thread the entire rope through while sitting on the quickdraw. When rapping the rope doesn't move - so there's no rope-to-sling friction. While threading the rope through the sling (prior to rapping) you either need to trust the single bolt (scary), or arrange a 'sliding' connection to the rope (slow) so that if the bolt you're sitting on fails during threading your belayer can catch your fall on the next piece of gear below. Once you start rapping there's nothing for it but to trust the single bolt

>2. The pocket itself would feed with difficulty or 'bind' on the abseil>device? (Note; the photo concerned used a fig.8)

Assuming 'the pocket' means what I think it does, note the 4th picture of the sequence at http://www.baurock.ru/quickhack/retreat.htm shows that the end of the rope tied to the sling is NOT weighted by the rap. When threading you need to pull through enough rope so that the rope hanging from that tied end reaches the ground. i.e 'the pocket' reaches the ground so you never get to a point where it binds. Any 2 strand abseil device is fine.

This whole process has me intrigued somewhat. Seems to me that there are multiple opportunities for it to go wrong, and that gear retrieval on the way down could be a problem if overhanging.
Pulling the entire rope through any gear would negate any redundancy also.
Am going to do some homework and possibly start another thread on this topic in a more appropriate location; and shift comments from here to 'clean up' this site.

On 9/09/2004 WM wrote:> Once>you start rapping there's nothing for it but to trust the single bolt >
That's enough to disqualify this technique. The golden rule is never to rap on a single anchor. I guess we've all broken that rule at times but rapping off a single anchor as a standard technique is just a big no-no.

OK, now I see the pics ..
Regarding Kieran's comment, there's nothing to stop you threading the sling through as many bits as you can reach.
However who in their right mind is going to reuse a sling that has had 20m of rope (assume 1/3 of 60m) pulled through it? Eek.
- Steve

Good day!>Congratulations on your 10th placing in the climbing competition
Thanks a lot! 10 place - not good result :). But i'm hope win in future :))

>For people like me who cannot read Russian
We think about translate in part baurock.ru on english, but it's too many work and time... we not professional translaters :). Site is made by enthusiasts, and not have sponsor.

>What length ropes do you use for your sport climbs?>I ask this because I noticed in the photo sequence of lowering off a bracket by >hreading a sling, and then tieing the tail of the rope to it to enable retrieval, that this>would effectively halve the length of abseil ? ... or do you pull up a second rope??

>this would effectively halve the length of abseil
this would will divide lenght of rope on 3. From eath to sling (1/3), from sling to eath (1/3) and from eath to slig again for link (connect?...?) end of rope with sling.
Sorry for my bad english :)

On 10/09/2004 konhobar wrote:>Sorry for my bad english :)
Do not be sorry.
Your English is much better than our (mostly) non existant Russian language abilities, and I think its great that the internet allows us the opportunities to converse; even if its mostly by pictures and 'bad english' (sic).

There is a concept (popular in the recent past) of 'sister cities'.

It seems to me that baurock.ru and Chockstone.org are 'sister sites'; being of similar nature and reinforced by our both achieving the 20,000 milestone, at about the same time.

On 9/09/2004 kieranl wrote:>That's enough to disqualify this technique. The golden rule is never to>rap on a single anchor.

Right - but the trade off here is between (a) lowering off a back-off biner (in which case once you've cleaned your gear 1/3rd of the way to the deck you're in the same position - only the one bolt is keeping you off the deck) or (b) saving the biner (but probably trashing a sling), by stuffing around with the threaded sling idea. You could also always back clean by down-jumping...

Konho told me abt your site and forum and I enjoyed it very much. Most of all I enjoyed photos because it's not necessary to use any language while looking them:) I'm afraid that we are all too lazy to translate our site into English, anyway it's a good idea to visit your site and forum:)

Thats not a unique problem to backing off though - its the same for any overhung route to be cleaned on rap/lower. Illustrated by the last 4 sentences at http://www.mrppp.com.au/nhb/reports/130299.html (NB doing this on Hang Five at Wave Wall would send you on a 10-15m swing which'd slam you into a 2m diameter tree trunk!)